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Empowered and Purpose-Driven with Shauna Brittenham Reiter · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Pippis Podcast. My name is Gamcpherson.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go
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Speaker 1: five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to have as my guest today,
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Speaker 1: Shauna Brittanham writer Shawna Welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm so grateful to be here. I love
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Speaker 2: the work that you do.
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Speaker 1: Appreciate that so. Shawna is an entrepreneur dedicated to the
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Speaker 1: empowerment and healing of others herself and let me do
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Speaker 1: that again, Shawna Brittenham, right in our Shauna.
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Speaker 2: I got your tongue twisted there. I can barely say
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Speaker 2: it myself, so.
0:43
Speaker 1: Thank God for editing.
0:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Shauna is an entrepreneur dedicated to the empowerment and healing
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Speaker 1: of herself and others, as well as the author of
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Speaker 1: the book You Are the Boss of You. In twenty eighteen,
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Speaker 1: she founded the wellness company Alion Naturals, based on the
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Speaker 1: principles of Holy to Help that led her from a
1:01
Speaker 1: life limited by overwhelming elements to founding a multimillion dollar
1:05
Speaker 1: wellness company. Before the age of forty, damn diagnosed with
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Speaker 1: a plethora of automimmune conditions. Over the years, Shauna has
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Speaker 1: cultivated a vast understanding of what the body requires to thrive.
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Speaker 1: And while her focus on natural medicine has made radical
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Speaker 1: healing possible for herself and hundreds of thousands of others,
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Speaker 1: it is our exploration of the world within that has
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Speaker 1: cultivated to true miracles. All right, Shawna, Before we go
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Speaker 1: in here share with our listeners we are from originally
1:32
Speaker 1: and where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: I'm from Los Angeles. Originally, I departed and have had
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Speaker 2: many adventures all over the world over the course of decades.
1:43
Speaker 2: But I'm currently back in LA raising my two young
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Speaker 2: children here and actually kind of wondering where to go next.
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Speaker 2: We were just evacuated for three weeks due to the
1:53
Speaker 2: LA wildfires, got home, and then we're sheltering in place
1:58
Speaker 2: yesterday and the day before due to mud slides. So
2:01
Speaker 2: it kind of feels like an interesting time to question
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Speaker 2: next steps and envision ourselves potentially elsewhere. The question is where, right, Like,
2:14
Speaker 2: you gotta be excited about where you're going next, So
2:18
Speaker 2: we're in lots of conversations about it.
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Speaker 1: So you guys were unharmed.
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Speaker 2: Our home is completely unscathed. There was a lot of
2:28
Speaker 2: ash and debris everywhere. I mean, basically the trails that
2:32
Speaker 2: we bought the home for are completely charred. Our landscape
2:35
Speaker 2: has shifted drastically, obviously, basically everything around us burned. And
2:41
Speaker 2: we got so lucky. These firemen manually opened our gate,
2:45
Speaker 2: sprayed retardant all over our yard, cleared excess brush, and
2:49
Speaker 2: really saved our home and the home of many of
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Speaker 2: the homes of our neighbors. But unfortunately a lot of
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Speaker 2: our community and the things that we do around the Palisades.
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Speaker 2: We raised kids in the Palisades. The home that we
3:01
Speaker 2: raise them and is gone. And you know, it just
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Speaker 2: kind of shifts your perspective in terms of really understanding
3:10
Speaker 2: what's important and what you can and can't live without. Frankly,
3:14
Speaker 2: like when you don't have time to pack a bag,
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Speaker 2: it really crystallizes what your priorities are. I recognize and
3:20
Speaker 2: I kind of knew this before, but that sleep and food,
3:24
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like Maslow's hierarchy, sleep and food are
3:27
Speaker 2: really paramount on my list. So like, I didn't have
3:31
Speaker 2: time to pack a bag, but my husband met us,
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Speaker 2: my children, and I are in the desert with my pillows,
3:37
Speaker 2: my sleeping pillows.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, so okay, very interesting bio. A lot going
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Speaker 1: on there. How did all this start? For you? This
3:53
Speaker 1: interest is passion? How does it? Where does it begin?
3:57
Speaker 1: How does it begin?
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Speaker 2: It really begins at fourteen years old. I mean it
4:02
Speaker 2: began probably prior to fourteen, but at fourteen I had
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Speaker 2: enough health issues that I had to start paying attention.
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Speaker 2: And you know, there are red flags and kind of
4:12
Speaker 2: little signs that haunt us maybe for days, months, or
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Speaker 2: even years before we really begin to take note of
4:21
Speaker 2: what's happening in our bodies and minds. And for me,
4:23
Speaker 2: fourteen was the point at which I could no longer
4:27
Speaker 2: ignore the fact that things were starting to break down.
4:30
Speaker 2: So I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease or you know,
4:34
Speaker 2: it's very similar to all st of colitis. The symptoms
4:37
Speaker 2: are parallel in many cases. And I had just a
4:42
Speaker 2: whole lot of issues ranging from poor energy to brain
4:49
Speaker 2: fog and inability to eat obviously at the time, and
4:53
Speaker 2: so it kind of all just catapulted into this catastrophic
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Speaker 2: mess of me requiring myself to extract my body, my mind,
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Speaker 2: my heart from everyday life and start fresh. So what
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Speaker 2: that looked like for me at the time was leaving
5:14
Speaker 2: the Ivy League prep school that I was in, the
5:16
Speaker 2: high school I was in, and being homeschooled for a
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Speaker 2: year and during that this is it. Well, by the
5:23
Speaker 2: time I left school, I was fifteen, Yeah, fourteen, I
5:27
Speaker 2: was seeing doctors. I had, you know, thirty two absences
5:30
Speaker 2: and six months kind of thing I was. We were
5:33
Speaker 2: just trying to figure out what was going on. We're
5:35
Speaker 2: doing a lot of troubleshooting. By fifteen, three weeks into school,
5:39
Speaker 2: it was clear I really still couldn't function on a
5:42
Speaker 2: day to day basis in a classroom with the level
5:44
Speaker 2: of demands that were sort of thrust upon me in
5:46
Speaker 2: that highly academic competitive environment. So I came home from
5:51
Speaker 2: school one day and requested to be homeschooled. And my
5:55
Speaker 2: dad's initial response was, isn't that something that people did
5:59
Speaker 2: and like they eighteen hundreds on a farm in Arkansas.
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Speaker 2: There was no concept of this being a relevant choice
6:04
Speaker 2: in modern day or practical one for that matter. So
6:08
Speaker 2: I say that exactly exactly. So we negotiated for two
6:14
Speaker 2: solid weeks, and then he ended up being a huge
6:18
Speaker 2: advocate of it, and I sort of got my ged
6:21
Speaker 2: in secret, you know, by April, and went on to
6:27
Speaker 2: start college at fifteen Community College later on that summer.
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Speaker 2: But that year was a really critical time for me
6:35
Speaker 2: in terms of being able to slow down and recognize
6:39
Speaker 2: the needs of my body. So what had been going
6:41
Speaker 2: on was I was in the cycle of just overriding
6:45
Speaker 2: the symptoms of stress and ignoring physical discomfort and mental
6:51
Speaker 2: anguish for that matter, because I had to function, I
6:54
Speaker 2: had to perform in this highly academic environment with all
6:57
Speaker 2: these extracurriculars, and I was singing and playing so and
7:01
Speaker 2: I mean I say that we're performing, I really mean it.
7:03
Speaker 2: I think like in life, we're expected to perform on
7:06
Speaker 2: so many levels, and we're assigned a role, or we
7:09
Speaker 2: assign ourselves a role in our families and our communities
7:12
Speaker 2: and our work lives, and then you know, we're performing
7:15
Speaker 2: a lot of the time without really recognizing who we
7:18
Speaker 2: are authentically, what we want and what will make us
7:22
Speaker 2: feel most alive. So that year I was homeschooled, I
7:26
Speaker 2: mean it did feel very Mennonite esque in the sense
7:29
Speaker 2: that like time sort of stopped, I mean, it slowed
7:32
Speaker 2: down significantly. I had these long stretches between classes because
7:36
Speaker 2: we organized my schedule to be more along the lines
7:40
Speaker 2: of a college schedule, which is why I decided to
7:42
Speaker 2: go to college. After that, I was like, this is great.
7:45
Speaker 2: I just want to carry on with this kind of
7:47
Speaker 2: level of freedom and autonomy. And in those spaces between
7:52
Speaker 2: assignments and between classes, I was able to experience myself
7:57
Speaker 2: in a way truly I never had before. I mean,
7:59
Speaker 2: maybe you know, at eight years old, over summertime, you
8:04
Speaker 2: have the freedom to meander, but as we get older,
8:07
Speaker 2: we lose that ability as pressures increase, right, And so
8:13
Speaker 2: it was a really astonishing time of revelation, after a
8:17
Speaker 2: revelation of going like, oh wow, when I'm anxious, this
8:22
Speaker 2: is what happens in my shoulders, and this is why
8:26
Speaker 2: I've got ulcers because when I'm upset, instead of wanting
8:30
Speaker 2: to be a burden, I hold everything in and process silently.
8:33
Speaker 2: It was literally like the Year of Revelations, and it
8:38
Speaker 2: gave me the sort of underpinning to move forward with
8:43
Speaker 2: my life with a very different level of awareness. And
8:46
Speaker 2: of course life took many different directions and turns, and
8:50
Speaker 2: there were other layers of trauma that needed to surface
8:54
Speaker 2: at magnitudes that were even more powerful than they were
8:58
Speaker 2: at age fourteen. I would say that was the beginning.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you have an incredible ability to articulate what was
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Speaker 1: going on. I mean the level of awareness were you
9:12
Speaker 1: to what degree were you aware of all of this
9:15
Speaker 1: during that time we're talking about what fifteen?
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Speaker 2: At fifteen, what I was aware of was that my
9:23
Speaker 2: body was physicalizing stress. In other words, everything I was
9:28
Speaker 2: experiencing physiologically was a result of some level of mental
9:32
Speaker 2: stress or torment. I was also very hard on myself,
9:37
Speaker 2: very much a perfectionist. I had ideals that were completely unrealistic.
9:41
Speaker 2: The standards and expectations I put on myself were really unkind,
9:46
Speaker 2: I mean, borderline criminal in a lot of ways for
9:49
Speaker 2: someone my age. And that is when I began to
9:52
Speaker 2: recognize how much pressure I was putting on myself and
9:56
Speaker 2: how free and sort of brated I felt without that pressure.
10:02
Speaker 1: And you mentioned your father was your mom in the
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Speaker 1: picture here.
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Speaker 2: My mom was in the picture. So my parents divorced
10:08
Speaker 2: when I was three, and they split custody fifty to fifty,
10:13
Speaker 2: So I was a week with my mom and a
10:14
Speaker 2: week with my dad at the time, and they all
10:17
Speaker 2: participated in the homeschooling efforts, as did my stepfather. My
10:22
Speaker 2: stepmother did not. But it was a real community affair.
10:26
Speaker 2: Everyone pitched it inflator role.
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Speaker 1: Now was this in La this? Yes, are we talking
10:32
Speaker 1: about one of these like high powered private schools.
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Speaker 2: Yes. This was a school where three students committed suicide
10:41
Speaker 2: last year because of the academic pressure. It was a
10:44
Speaker 2: real feeder to IVY leagues. I made a decision when
10:49
Speaker 2: I decided to, you know, go to college, that I
10:52
Speaker 2: didn't even want to apply to an IVY League school
10:55
Speaker 2: because I knew that if I was there, I would
10:57
Speaker 2: then want to perform, you know, and be in the
10:59
Speaker 2: top top percentile. And it just given my nature and
11:03
Speaker 2: given the amount of pressure I was putting my on
11:06
Speaker 2: myself at the time, it wasn't even on my list
11:10
Speaker 2: of schools, you know, any of the schools that the
11:12
Speaker 2: college counselor recommended I completely disregarded. I ended up that
11:17
Speaker 2: a small liberal arts school in South Carolina that I
11:20
Speaker 2: show is based on a picture of fall foliage and
11:23
Speaker 2: the fact that there were swans sort of paddling around
11:27
Speaker 2: a lake and as the centerpiece of the campus. My
11:30
Speaker 2: interest in this school had very little to do with academics.
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Speaker 1: Was was it hard for you to step away from
11:39
Speaker 1: that environment? I mean, were you judging yourself because of that?
11:44
Speaker 1: Was there? I don't know. I can't. Oh my god,
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Speaker 1: I can't do this. I have to get myself out
11:53
Speaker 1: of this program. What are people going to think? Was
11:55
Speaker 1: there any no?
11:56
Speaker 2: I think, To be honest with you, guys, I think
11:58
Speaker 2: I was in such a desperate date. Physically, I was
12:01
Speaker 2: so unwell. I had alsers in both of my intestines
12:04
Speaker 2: and stomach. So just to kind of get by from
12:08
Speaker 2: day to day and like brush my teeth and feel
12:11
Speaker 2: coherent was such a strain. It took so much energy
12:15
Speaker 2: that I don't feel like at the time, I was
12:17
Speaker 2: thinking about judgment from others, particularly because I was such
12:21
Speaker 2: a social being that I knew I would maintain the
12:25
Speaker 2: friendships and I knew that the relationships that meant something
12:29
Speaker 2: would continue on outside of school life. You know, it's
12:34
Speaker 2: funny as someone who does have this perfectionist event, I
12:38
Speaker 2: have no problem leaving situations that don't feel good. I
12:43
Speaker 2: left graduate. I actually didn't finish my graduate degree either.
12:46
Speaker 2: I went to school for clinical psychology. I am probably
12:50
Speaker 2: three classes short of a master's degree, and it wasn't
12:54
Speaker 2: the right time to finish. I was doing other things
12:56
Speaker 2: at the time as well, and I never thought twice
13:00
Speaker 2: about it, never really looked back. My husband's to this
13:03
Speaker 2: day is like, gosh, did you just wish you had
13:04
Speaker 2: that degree under your belt? And I said, not really,
13:06
Speaker 2: because it doesn't actually inform a lot of the conversations
13:09
Speaker 2: I'm having. The work I've done, The work I've done
13:14
Speaker 2: on myself is largely informed by the very powerful, extraordinary
13:18
Speaker 2: and brilliant work of psychologists and people like you, you know,
13:21
Speaker 2: who are credential to do the work. But my life
13:24
Speaker 2: experiences and experimenting with so many different healing techniques and
13:30
Speaker 2: modalities have really led me down on a path that feels,
13:34
Speaker 2: you know, pretty spot on for me.
13:37
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into that. So you talked about was
13:40
Speaker 1: it the college with the with the swans and the lakes?
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Speaker 2: Yes?
13:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so you got there. What were you thinking?
13:48
Speaker 1: When does this healing begin? When does a self healing.
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Speaker 2: Start to Well, I mean a lot of it started
13:55
Speaker 2: that year prior to I was in community college for
13:59
Speaker 2: a year prior to transferring to the four year school
14:03
Speaker 2: in South Carolina, and a lot of the work that
14:06
Speaker 2: took place, you know, in terms of just creating a
14:09
Speaker 2: really solid foundation, happened while I was homeschooling, happened in
14:12
Speaker 2: that year of community college. By the time I got
14:16
Speaker 2: to a four year school, I was in pretty good
14:19
Speaker 2: shape and had a relatively benign four years. It wasn't
14:25
Speaker 2: until after college that I had sort of my next
14:29
Speaker 2: layer of awareness about things from the past that needed
14:34
Speaker 2: to be addressed. And I'm sure a lot of your
14:37
Speaker 2: listeners are familiar with this cycle of feeling like you've
14:41
Speaker 2: gotten through something, maybe it resolved an issue or worked
14:45
Speaker 2: through something, and then something that has had a strong,
14:48
Speaker 2: profound impact on your life, and you think the healing
14:51
Speaker 2: work is over, and then boom, something else happens that
14:54
Speaker 2: triggers you. It's like it feels like you're back to
14:57
Speaker 2: square one, but you're not. You're actually not. You're always
15:00
Speaker 2: building on the previous work and able to go deeper
15:04
Speaker 2: and further. And it's just different textures and dimensions of
15:08
Speaker 2: the healing process, and it's not linear, and it happens
15:12
Speaker 2: in a lot of different ways over for many of us,
15:15
Speaker 2: a long period of time, So there were many points
15:18
Speaker 2: beyond that year of homeschooling and community college and past,
15:23
Speaker 2: you know, the college years where once again another wave
15:27
Speaker 2: of things surface that I had to deal with. After
15:31
Speaker 2: my daughter was born, there was another cycle where I
15:34
Speaker 2: was processing my relationship with my mom differently, being the
15:37
Speaker 2: mom of a young girl and so at different points
15:41
Speaker 2: of my life, you know, awarenesses have led me to
15:46
Speaker 2: embark more deeply on the journey, the journey of healing,
15:50
Speaker 2: if that makes sense, And I've I had to try
15:52
Speaker 2: new ways to feel you know, settled in my own skin.
15:58
Speaker 1: Before you did that, how were you managing with these
16:02
Speaker 1: waves of new stressors that came well.
16:04
Speaker 2: I think that I used religion for a very long
16:08
Speaker 2: time to feel secure. I had appeared my mom became
16:12
Speaker 2: a born again Christian when I was I want to
16:15
Speaker 2: say eleven or twelve, and then between fourteen and about
16:21
Speaker 2: twenty two, I was pretty religious and it made me
16:26
Speaker 2: feel safe. I also, though, had very very high levels
16:32
Speaker 2: of anxiety, and the perfectionism was still pretty overwhelming in
16:38
Speaker 2: a sense that it impacted my quality of life on
16:40
Speaker 2: a daily basis. At twenty two twenty three, I fell
16:44
Speaker 2: away from formalized religion, institutionalized religion, but still was deeply
16:50
Speaker 2: curious about the spiritual possibilities. And I continue at forty
16:56
Speaker 2: three to have a similar perspective to what I adopted
17:03
Speaker 2: at twenty two, which is that there's just a lot
17:05
Speaker 2: we don't know about what's out there. And it continues
17:10
Speaker 2: to make me feel supported to believe that there are
17:14
Speaker 2: unseen entities at play, whether you want to call them,
17:18
Speaker 2: you know, spiritual energies or forces or light beings. I mean,
17:23
Speaker 2: people have such different ways of God feel very different
17:26
Speaker 2: ways of sort of interpreting what's out there. It does
17:30
Speaker 2: make me still feel a little less responsible for the
17:36
Speaker 2: amount that I'm carrying in my life on a daily
17:40
Speaker 2: basis just human you know. Yeah, I can't put a
17:44
Speaker 2: name to it necessarily, but I still often sort of
17:48
Speaker 2: defer to whatever else is out there for support.
17:52
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Alia naturals. How did that come about?
17:54
Speaker 1: What was the impetus for that?
17:56
Speaker 2: The impetus for Aliah was that I had been in
17:59
Speaker 2: such a good place with my health until having my
18:02
Speaker 2: second child, and having two kids in twenty four months
18:07
Speaker 2: really just took a toll. And I was also I
18:09
Speaker 2: had been singing at the time, in songwriting, and I
18:12
Speaker 2: had been very prolific sort of in this musical sense,
18:14
Speaker 2: and then all of that shut down. And for me,
18:17
Speaker 2: when creativity gets stifled, I get very anxious. I feel
18:22
Speaker 2: sort of suffocated internally, like the part of me that
18:26
Speaker 2: is being fed with like true oxygen, you know, just
18:30
Speaker 2: feels kind of like claustrophobic. So I shut a lot
18:35
Speaker 2: of my creativity down after having kids because I wanted
18:38
Speaker 2: so badly to be a good mother and show up
18:40
Speaker 2: for them full time that it really began to take
18:43
Speaker 2: its toll after the birth of my second child. So
18:47
Speaker 2: I had the idea. I've always been super into nutrition,
18:49
Speaker 2: I've always taken tons of supplements, So I had the
18:53
Speaker 2: idea basically to create, you know, a line that reflected
18:58
Speaker 2: what I want to take for my self in order
19:01
Speaker 2: to feel like I'm functionally functioning optimally, you know, maximizing
19:07
Speaker 2: my days just you know, not just in terms of
19:10
Speaker 2: like what I'm creating, but in terms of how I'm feeling.
19:13
Speaker 2: So that's what I did. I created a Lion Naturals
19:16
Speaker 2: based on so much of the education i'd received, you know,
19:21
Speaker 2: just not being well at different points of my life.
19:24
Speaker 1: So okay, how how would you do? I mean, what
19:28
Speaker 1: did you do to create this well.
19:30
Speaker 2: It started in my garage, you know, and I was
19:34
Speaker 2: customer service, you know, under an alias name, and it
19:39
Speaker 2: was step by step. I went to Expo West out
19:43
Speaker 2: here in LA I mean, there's lots of great places
19:46
Speaker 2: you can go to meet vendors and labs or there,
19:51
Speaker 2: you know, marketing their services. I made some very pivotal
19:56
Speaker 2: connections there and and then just built the company very
20:01
Speaker 2: very slowly. And so I mean, the great thing about
20:06
Speaker 2: wonderful products is that if you are creating something that
20:12
Speaker 2: people need at the right time, you will probably succeed
20:15
Speaker 2: if you're persistent enough. The persistence piece is really key.
20:19
Speaker 2: And I think that's true for healing, it's true for
20:21
Speaker 2: everything in life. Like I now I'm an author. I
20:25
Speaker 2: think ninety nine percent of why my book I just
20:28
Speaker 2: made the USA Today National bestseller list on Wednesday, work,
20:32
Speaker 2: thank you very much. And I think part of why
20:35
Speaker 2: is just because of the persistence. Like if you just
20:38
Speaker 2: don't give up. I mean, if it's the right idea
20:40
Speaker 2: and the thing that you feel most passionate about, it
20:43
Speaker 2: may not be the right time, you know, for things
20:46
Speaker 2: to blow up, but over time you will see things
20:49
Speaker 2: start to pick up, and the success you know will
20:52
Speaker 2: surely come if you are dedicated enough, Like I've been
20:56
Speaker 2: writing for four years now and just publish my first book.
21:00
Speaker 2: So everything is processed. Everything in life is processed. We
21:02
Speaker 2: have to be patient.
21:05
Speaker 1: So let's get to the book. But before we do,
21:07
Speaker 1: just Aliyah, who is it for.
21:11
Speaker 2: It's for anyone who wants to feel physically robust, mentally clear,
21:16
Speaker 2: like they have energy they've never had before, like they're
21:19
Speaker 2: not aging as quickly as they feel they're aging. I'm
21:23
Speaker 2: a forty three year old woman. I take everything I make. Obviously,
21:27
Speaker 2: a lot of our demographic is very active, people between
21:31
Speaker 2: the age of thirty and you know, eighty. So I mean,
21:36
Speaker 2: we have a lot of female customers because they resonate
21:40
Speaker 2: with my personal story. But we've got a lot of
21:43
Speaker 2: athletes who take our supplements. We've got tons of people
21:47
Speaker 2: and every professional field you can imagine, you know, Because
21:52
Speaker 2: if you want to up level in your life, it's
21:55
Speaker 2: important to kind of look at what you're doing and
21:58
Speaker 2: what you're not doing, just yourself and try to fill
22:01
Speaker 2: in the gaps as early on as possible. I believe
22:03
Speaker 2: that prevention is really pivotal when it comes to health,
22:07
Speaker 2: So getting ahead of it is always a great strategy.
22:10
Speaker 1: Awesome, okay, and we'll have that linked up here at
22:13
Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma theaporiespodcast dot com.
22:16
Speaker 1: A line actuals. Okay. So the book is called You
22:18
Speaker 1: Are the Boss of You. Why did you write this?
22:25
Speaker 2: I wrote this book because I've had tremendous access to
22:29
Speaker 2: resources that have helped me heal. And it took me
22:34
Speaker 2: so many years of trying different kinds of therapy, alternative
22:39
Speaker 2: practitioners as well as certified you know, psychoanalysts. I've created
22:47
Speaker 2: a lot of my own methodologies that have worked for
22:49
Speaker 2: me when I have felt like nothing else has, and
22:52
Speaker 2: I've deeply explored on many levels everything I write and
22:56
Speaker 2: talk about. So the book is broken down to ten
23:01
Speaker 2: chapters that are like, basically the things I've struggled with
23:04
Speaker 2: the most deeply over the course of my life and
23:06
Speaker 2: needed to allocate a lot of time and attention, attention
23:09
Speaker 2: and energy to healing. And I feel like it's just
23:14
Speaker 2: important to pay it forward when you've had the luxury
23:17
Speaker 2: of you know, learning so much and acquiring so much
23:21
Speaker 2: wisdom because you could, because you can. You know, It's
23:25
Speaker 2: it's really important as an offering to others to give back.
23:29
Speaker 1: And when you say you've had a lot of access
23:31
Speaker 1: to different modalities and treatments, et cetera, what are we
23:36
Speaker 1: talking about.
23:37
Speaker 2: I've tried, I mean, cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, with neurolinguistic reprogramming,
23:44
Speaker 2: somatic therapy. I've worked. I'm a certified reiki practitioner myself.
23:50
Speaker 2: I've worked with all kinds of energy healers. I've practiced yoga,
23:54
Speaker 2: I have done the training for trans transcendental meditation Veno VEDEGMITD,
24:00
Speaker 2: and I've been practicing for over twenty years. So I mean,
24:05
Speaker 2: these are just this is just a fraction of what
24:07
Speaker 2: I present in the book as a possibility. So I
24:11
Speaker 2: feel like I have so many even close friends who
24:15
Speaker 2: just don't know where to start, or they don't have
24:18
Speaker 2: the time, or it's financially burdens them, and the therapist
24:21
Speaker 2: they want to see doesn't take their insurance, and on
24:24
Speaker 2: and on and on, and you've got three children and
24:26
Speaker 2: you're working and life is hard, and also sometimes you
24:30
Speaker 2: don't even know what the problem is. It's like there's
24:31
Speaker 2: just this elusive, vague feeling of sort of like there's
24:35
Speaker 2: a dark cloud, you know, or a shadow over you
24:38
Speaker 2: all the time, but it's very elusive. It's like people
24:41
Speaker 2: don't even know where to begin sometimes. So this book,
24:44
Speaker 2: I hope is like a first step that's like actually
24:47
Speaker 2: incredibly comprehensive at the.
24:48
Speaker 1: Same time, that's I think what you said there is
24:53
Speaker 1: so important and hit the nail on the head, I
24:56
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people. So how do you
25:02
Speaker 1: address that. The will.
25:05
Speaker 2: Will read my book and you will have so much
25:08
Speaker 2: more of an understanding. I will give I will give it.
25:13
Speaker 2: I will happily give this book to any of your
25:15
Speaker 2: listeners who want to reach out to me. If you
25:17
Speaker 2: if you go through the steps of the book, you
25:20
Speaker 2: will understand really how to create the scaffolding of your
25:25
Speaker 2: life in a way that almost inevitably will lead to
25:28
Speaker 2: emotional freedom, a sense of abundance and opportunity. Because I
25:32
Speaker 2: begin with defining boundaries and I end with building your future,
25:35
Speaker 2: and in between is everything from soothing yourself, softening perfectionism,
25:40
Speaker 2: redefining your self, concept, honoring sleep, healing trauma, feeling at all,
25:44
Speaker 2: creating your rhythm, and advocating for yourself. So these are
25:47
Speaker 2: the fundamental tenets that if you can really begin to
25:51
Speaker 2: dig deep into these, you know basic principles, you will
25:55
Speaker 2: move ahead so much faster in your life than you
25:58
Speaker 2: imagine possible.
26:00
Speaker 1: Why curious about defining boundaries? Why? Why is that important?
26:04
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just been such a huge obstacle for me.
26:07
Speaker 1: Mean boundaries defined.
26:10
Speaker 2: By boundaries, I mean behaving authentically in a way that
26:14
Speaker 2: represents your internal world. So what you're agreeing to and
26:19
Speaker 2: what you're saying no to reflects your actual desires and
26:22
Speaker 2: needs in real time and your priorities. Okay, so many
26:25
Speaker 2: of us walk around and societally there are expectations that
26:31
Speaker 2: sort of necessitate in a sense that we show up
26:36
Speaker 2: to certain places at certain times. Right, But there's a
26:38
Speaker 2: lot that we can say no to that we don't
26:40
Speaker 2: realize we can say no to. For instance, I don't
26:43
Speaker 2: pick up the phone every time someone calls me if
26:45
Speaker 2: it's not even if it's just because I'm enjoying a podcast.
26:48
Speaker 2: If I'm listening to your podcast, guy, and someone calls me,
26:51
Speaker 2: maybe it's not the right time for me to pick
26:52
Speaker 2: up the phone, you know what I mean. Creating boundaries
26:56
Speaker 2: means that there is a way in which you're walking
26:59
Speaker 2: through through the world that empowers you to say no
27:04
Speaker 2: when you want to say no and say yes when
27:05
Speaker 2: you want to say yes, and not feel obliged to
27:08
Speaker 2: say yes when you really want to say no. And
27:10
Speaker 2: a lot of the reasons for why we say yes
27:12
Speaker 2: when we want to say no are also addressed in
27:14
Speaker 2: the book, because some of it's subliminal, some of it's
27:17
Speaker 2: you know, the fact that we were all raised with
27:19
Speaker 2: parents who told us we were okay when we weren't,
27:22
Speaker 2: that we're fine when we weren't, that we were warm
27:25
Speaker 2: when we were cold, you know what I mean. Like,
27:27
Speaker 2: we learn very early on to betray ourselves, and that
27:30
Speaker 2: pattern of betrayal carries on into adulthood to a degree
27:35
Speaker 2: to which often we don't even know what we want
27:38
Speaker 2: because we're so used to deferring to the preferences of others,
27:41
Speaker 2: or if we know what we want, we're afraid of judgment,
27:44
Speaker 2: or we're afraid of losing something, maybe our position at work,
27:47
Speaker 2: or maybe you know, an accolade or respect or love
27:51
Speaker 2: or a sense of affirmation. And that fear of losing
27:54
Speaker 2: something often also creates a lack of boundaries because we
27:58
Speaker 2: feel like if we say no, you know, there's a
28:01
Speaker 2: risk involved or a potential threat. So I walk people
28:05
Speaker 2: through very viscerally, how to begin to identify and clarify
28:09
Speaker 2: what it is they really want to need based on
28:11
Speaker 2: who they are and what their actual preferences are in
28:15
Speaker 2: real time, because what you want today may be different
28:17
Speaker 2: from what you want tomorrow. Right like, today you might
28:20
Speaker 2: be feeling uber social and you want to go to
28:22
Speaker 2: the lunch, and tomorrow something might come up and you
28:25
Speaker 2: need to rest, and that might be the time for
28:27
Speaker 2: you to make the phone call that says, you know,
28:29
Speaker 2: I really want to show up. I'm having a rough
28:32
Speaker 2: day and what I need is to be flat on
28:34
Speaker 2: my back. I really appreciate you understanding. You know, these
28:38
Speaker 2: subtle ways in which we can create boundaries can phenomenally
28:43
Speaker 2: change our lives and impact our levels of energy immeasurably.
28:48
Speaker 2: I mean, the amount of energy we save learning how
28:50
Speaker 2: to say no is absolutely critical.
28:53
Speaker 1: I love that the title of the book, You're the
28:56
Speaker 1: Boss of You, is very interesting to me because it's
28:59
Speaker 1: also in one sense empowering, right, but also it feels
29:04
Speaker 1: like it's a little bit you're calling out people. You
29:08
Speaker 1: know you're responsible to get your act together. You're responsible
29:12
Speaker 1: and you have the power to do that. There's a
29:14
Speaker 1: lot of energy in that.
29:16
Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate that, and it's true. It's like,
29:19
Speaker 2: regardless of how many resources are available to you, you
29:23
Speaker 2: need to take action and advocate for yourself in life,
29:27
Speaker 2: like you ultimately need to be your own best advocate
29:31
Speaker 2: and move forward in ways that are productive and healing
29:34
Speaker 2: for your own heart.
29:35
Speaker 1: So you, obviously now as you're sitting here with that
29:42
Speaker 1: incredible lit tree behind.
29:44
Speaker 2: You, than you for.
29:48
Speaker 1: A lot of you know, I mean, you speak with
29:50
Speaker 1: a lot of energy and passion and authority and confidence.
29:55
Speaker 1: My guess was that always like that for you, k oh.
30:01
Speaker 2: No, And largely a lot of what I've sought to
30:05
Speaker 2: achieve was rooted in very deep insecurities early on in
30:08
Speaker 2: my life. So what shifted was I'm now creating from
30:12
Speaker 2: a place of pure passion and love and ease versus
30:17
Speaker 2: needing to prove myself or feel like I'm enough. I
30:20
Speaker 2: was plagued the vast majority of my life with the
30:23
Speaker 2: disease of not enoughness and insecurities can drive us to
30:29
Speaker 2: do really shameful things. I mean, I sabotaged a lot
30:32
Speaker 2: of romantic relationships. I tortured my own husbands early on
30:37
Speaker 2: in our relationship and also have not fully allowed myself
30:43
Speaker 2: to celebrate a lot of wins in my life because
30:47
Speaker 2: I'm immediately looking to up level or I'm comparing myself
30:52
Speaker 2: to people around me. I think I am most confident
30:56
Speaker 2: in situations where I'm using my personal story and what
31:01
Speaker 2: I've been through to empower others, because I feel like
31:05
Speaker 2: there's purpose there. You know. It's not about me. It's
31:08
Speaker 2: not about me even proving to myself that I'm good enough.
31:12
Speaker 2: It's about really just showing up for other people on
31:15
Speaker 2: their journey, and that's really what I want to spend
31:18
Speaker 2: the rest of my life doing. But for you, I
31:23
Speaker 2: think for me, making art of the most trying and
31:28
Speaker 2: terrible parts of my life is a challenge that makes
31:34
Speaker 2: everything I've been through feel really exciting versus really like
31:39
Speaker 2: hard and dark and ominous. Like if I can use
31:43
Speaker 2: pain as a way to fuel others and catalyze others
31:48
Speaker 2: to grow, or to assure them and provide resources for
31:53
Speaker 2: them regarding their own healing, in a way, it was
31:56
Speaker 2: worth it, you know, for that alone person who's always
32:01
Speaker 2: kind of I'm a meaning junkie. I'm always scrounging for reasons,
32:04
Speaker 2: you know, to be here on this planet and to
32:06
Speaker 2: make sense of my place here. Although I think one
32:09
Speaker 2: of the pivotal things that I do want to say
32:11
Speaker 2: a guy in response to your question regarding my confidence
32:17
Speaker 2: or parent confidence, is that A huge shift for me
32:22
Speaker 2: in the past few years was recognizing that like nothing
32:25
Speaker 2: I do, even create from a place of beauty or achieve,
32:29
Speaker 2: changes my value as a human. Like, fundamentally, I'm enough,
32:34
Speaker 2: and I'm one thousand percent worthy of love and respect
32:38
Speaker 2: and belonging just because I was born. So there's nothing
32:41
Speaker 2: I have to do to earn my place on this planet. Right,
32:44
Speaker 2: And if my innate belief is that I'm not worthier,
32:49
Speaker 2: I'm not enough, I'm going to continue to create reasons
32:52
Speaker 2: to feel that way, regardless of what I do or achieve. Right.
32:55
Speaker 2: So I had to take a very hard look at
32:58
Speaker 2: my life and the choices I was making at a
33:01
Speaker 2: certain point and go, like, I'm always going to set
33:04
Speaker 2: myself up to feel unworthy if I feel unworthy fundamentally, right, Like,
33:09
Speaker 2: I'm just going to reinforce that narrative by looking by
33:13
Speaker 2: comparing myself to people who are in a different place
33:15
Speaker 2: in their lives or even in their healing process. And
33:17
Speaker 2: people get very competitive too about healing, it's like, knock
33:21
Speaker 2: it off, Like we're all here just doing our best.
33:23
Speaker 2: It's so hard to be human, it's so hard to
33:26
Speaker 2: be on this planet. Let's all just be gentle with
33:28
Speaker 2: ourselves and with each other. And so coming to this
33:31
Speaker 2: place and realizing that like I'm enough just as I am,
33:34
Speaker 2: it does give me confidence.
33:37
Speaker 1: Love it, Love it all, right, Sean. How do people
33:41
Speaker 1: learn more about you? What you're doing? What's the best way?
33:45
Speaker 2: Yes? So, my book You Are the Boss of You
33:48
Speaker 2: is available on Amazon dot com, and I created a
33:53
Speaker 2: bonus work book that can be found at my personal website,
33:57
Speaker 2: Helloshauna dot com. If people want to get in touch
34:01
Speaker 2: with me there, ask questions, share their personal stories. There's
34:05
Speaker 2: a page where they can, you know, message me directly.
34:09
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can't because of the volume of
34:12
Speaker 2: messages I receive. There's sometimes a gap, but I really
34:15
Speaker 2: do try my best to respond to everyone who reaches out.
34:19
Speaker 2: And uh yeah, and that's those are the basics.
34:23
Speaker 1: Okay, and we'll have those linked up here at the
34:25
Speaker 1: show notes page at the Trauma Thepist podcast dot com. Seana,
34:28
Speaker 1: come on, you are amazing.
34:31
Speaker 2: You're amazing. You're spending your life doing these amazing and
34:34
Speaker 2: I've learned so much from every conversation you've shared with
34:38
Speaker 2: your audience, and I'm your audience.
34:40
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Love talking to you, love your energy,
34:46
Speaker 1: and you know the degree to which you're you're sharing
34:49
Speaker 1: your story and moving on to help others and inspire others.
34:52
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what this is about. So love to
34:55
Speaker 1: have you back at a later date.
34:57
Speaker 2: And thank you, guys, Thank you for honored would be here.
35:00
Speaker 2: Thank you. Have a fantastic rest of your day. All right,
35:03
Speaker 2: take care, take care. Bye bye